It's sarcasm, numbnuts. Same time last year, my words would've been the ones of every reactionary Yankee fan like yourself. Now that he's everyone's darling again, I just figured someone had to remind you.
I was never down on him like some jerk would be Yankee fans have been so nothing with me has changed. Those so called fans would like to define his career by a couple of bad playoff series and ignore everything else he has done good.
You're absolutely right, and I'll admit that not muc further in the future, it will be a year since I started being guilty of just those charges. I admit it. I gave in to being a dumbass. I regret it. --------------------- Anyway, another very good showing. They have to keep this up. It's still a long road ahead, but when this offense is clicking, it's flat out scary. I gotta say, as far as Duncan goes, now I understand. But I'm not going to get ahead of myself on the guy. Yeah, he is reminiscent of Shane Spencer. Anyone remember what happened to him? Neither do I...
What a game. The D-Rays... good for what ails you. On the subject of A-Rod and his "stat-padding" (I know it was just kidding around), I always found it to be an interesting jab at him... especially since it's a myth. Check this out: Code: Relative score +4.. 63 +3 41 +2 28 +1 55 Tied 141 -1 59 -2 32 -3 26 -4.. 52 By far, the most home runs have come with the score tied. More than half of his home runs (51.3%) have come with the score within one run either way. He's also had 171 go-ahead HRs, and 42 homers to tie a game. Let's compare that to everyone's favorite "clutch" slugger, David Ortiz. Code: Relative score +4.. 23 +3 19 +2 24 +1 21 Tied 79 -1 27 -2 20 -3 9 -4.. 25 Is it just me, or does that spread look rather similar, minus the fact that A-Rod has a lot MORE homers. 51.4% of his home runs come with the score within one run either way. That's a 0.1% difference from A-Rod. But let's take another look at the go-ahead or tying homers. Ortiz has 89 go-ahead HRs and 22 tying. 42.8% of A-Rod's home runs have tied the game or put his team ahead, compared to 44.9% of David Ortiz's home runs. Miniscule differences in terms of their "meaningful" home runs... and yet their reputations are worlds apart. I find this to be another fascinating example of how much these baseball "truths" are based on personality as opposed to performance. To hear the average fan or talking head tell you about Ortiz, he is a mythical giant whose ninth-inning heroics are inevitable. Even his strikeouts manage to put runs on the board... that's how clutch he is. And (until this year), A-Rod was forever the choker and stat-padder... a good player who only hits home runs when his team is up or down by more than 10 runs. Of course, that's simply not true.
The man has gone RBI-less in TWELVE straight postseason games. It's not just a bad game, a bad few games, a bad series it's 12 games! That's unacceptable from a player as talented as he is. Once again it amazes me that you can bash a guy who won 4 Championships and be a "good fan" but if other fans get on a player who has been our worst player in postseason then we are "jerk, would be Yankee fans".
Here we go again with the ARod argument. Not that I really want to bother with this anymore, but a couple things... Cappy, the perception of ARod came last year. With the exception of junc, any other Yankees fan I know that came down on Alex did it last season, where, at least perceptually, he failed when he was most needed. It almost seemed automatic he would K with 2 outs and runners on, or ground into a DP with a man on 1st and 3rd and one out. Is that purely perceptional? Perhaps. To be quite honest, that's how I remember it. I stuck by ARod almost all of last year. I finally gave up on supporting him in August, right around the Boston Massacre, since it felt like it was just too hard to keep supporting him. Is that unfair? 20/20 hindsight says of course it is. He's an amazing ballplayer. However, at the time, it just seemed undeniable that he could ever break out of a perceived lack of "clutchness." --------------------- Junc, we understand your position. You think Joe deserves more credit for championships won last millenium, while ARod's recent inability to generate runs in October over the past few years is unforgivable. The fact is, they have both failed in the postseason the past few years. ARod has not generated runs, but neither has the rest of the team. When that happens, you have to point the finger somewhere. It gets pointed at the manager in almost all cases. It's not like this is a new concept. It's a manager's sole responsibility to assure his entire team is prepared to play. When that team fails, it's hard to say the entire team is at fault (whether that's right or wrong.) -------------------------- Anyway, none of the history matters right now. We're fighting for our postseason lives right now, and both men are critical to our success. A lot can be chalked up to spilled milk if this team can manage to get to October this year. Of course, that also involves success there as well, or we're going to be arguing long into the winter too.
I didn't bring it up. So we avoid any more confusion I have always rooted for Alex, just b/c he has frustrated all yankee fans and I vent doesn't mean I didn't wnat him to succeed here. Nah, we should celebrate the greatness of our worst postseason player rather than a Manager who led us to 4 Championships. Up until this yar it has been much mroe fun watching ARod blast 9th inning HRs up 7-1 than it ever was watching joe guide us to Championships:rofl: Nobody has failed mroe than ARod. I blame Joe for putting Matsui and Sheff back in the lienup last year and Joe gets his share of the blame for the postseason failures but he'd have alot mroe success if his supposed best player ever showed up in october. I just want to see them win, I don't care how we do it.
Junc, I wasn't trying to argue with you. I didn't even say you started it. Relax man. I don't think anyone ever rooted "against" Alex. People got down on him for perceived failures, but I doubt ANY Yankees fan with any fraction of common sense rooted against him. That would just be stupid. As for celebrating ARod and not Torre, what are you talking about? No one is denying Joe won titles. He gets credit for them. (Well, maybe not so much from me, but from the vast majority of people.) The things Joe gets pounded for are things like Matsui and Sheff, as you mentioned, and things like overusing the pen. Doing things like taking up an entire roster spot for a "lefty specialist" who can't get lefties out, and only pitches to one batter. (He gets credit for letting Myers just finish yesterday from me.) On the subject of ARod though, we're talking about arguably the single greatest player in the game, and possibly the greatest ever when his career is over. Has his postseason performance been up to snuff? No, but no one ever claimed it was. Alex gets his lumps from everyone for his personal performance in October. But his performance from April through September is bordering on legendary now. As for not caring how they win, that's one thing we can always agree on. :beer:
Actually, the perception of A-Rod as a "stat-padder" has been one that has dogged him throughout his entire career... not just last year. Last year was a tough year all-around for A-Rod. And yet I can't think of a 3B I would rather have had last year... he still put up the best or second-best numbers for third basemen in the league. -------------- Re: Alex's postseason performance, he's being judged on his most recent 40 ABs. They are the "most important" ABs, but unfortunately, the game doesn't really work that way. 40 ABs is 40 ABs is 40 ABs. Regardless of the "meaning" of those at bats, it's a terribly small sample size, not worthy of attributing a player's performance to something inherent in that player (i.e. he's a "choker" and "can't" hit in the postseason). At this point, he's had three bad series. Awful series, actually. He's flat out sucked. I think that's more a function of variance than some inherent quality. People talk about great Jeter is in the postseason. He's played in a lot of postseason games. Enough that the sample size is getting close to adequate for making a judgment. Guess what? His BA is right in line with his career BA. Guess which line is Jeter's postseason BA/OBP/SLG vs. his regular season: .314 .384 .479 .317 .389 .463 I guess the point of all of this is that while A-Rod DIDN'T perform in the postseason the past few series, it's too small of a sample size to say he CAN'T or WON'T in the future. In fact, he has in the past, and the smart money says he will again.
Well, that's what it really comes down to Cappy. It is far too small a sample size, coupled with the fact that the whole team has underperformed in the postseason since he arrived. This brings your whole conversation about perception right back into it. ARod's arrival was supposted to be the harbinger of Yankees dominance in the World Series. When that didn't pan out, the finger got pointed at his failures. On the other hand, perenial postseason heroes like Jeter, Posada and Bernie were all playing at their regular level. In the end, it appears to the naked eye that ARod is garbage in October, and Jeter is a god. Simply because the guys around them are not doing anything. Babe Ruth is credited with saving baseball from the Black Sox. However, what would Ruth have done if it weren't for his supporting cast? Sure, he'd have been a Hall of Fame player, regardless. However, would he own the career home run record for decades? That's a tough argument to make. You're a smart guy man. It's a pleasure to have you aboard. :beer: (Even if you do make me clean pie off my face once in a while :wink
Exactly. And you can go back and find plenty of postseason series where Jeter or Bernie or Posada sucked just as bad (or worse) than A-Rod has. Hell, Posada's postseason numbers are far, far worse than A-Rod's career playoff stats. Posada - .241 .358 .388 A-Rod - .280 .362 .485 Go check out some of Bernie's postseason series, like the 96 WS, the 97 ALDS, the 98 ALDS or WS, the 2000 WS, and so on. He had some great series, but I think he's hitting under .100 in the ones I listed. No one ever notices that, though, because the rest of the guys on the team picked him up. Certainly no one has ever called Bernie out as a choker because of those series, despite the fact that Bernie's career postseason batting average is almost twenty points lower than his regular season average: .297 .381 .477 .275 .371 .480 (But, of course, the larger sample size for Bernie has his OBP and SLG lining up nicely, as would be expected.) A-Rod, unfortunately, hasn't had the luxury of team success at the expense of poor individual performance. The past few years, it's been one combination or another of Jeter, Posada, Sheffield, Matsui, Cano, Giambi, Bernie, etc... having a rough series. And, possibly most importantly, this is why pitching is the key to the postseason. You can't expect to win games 21-4 in the playoffs very frequently. You can't give up 6-7 runs and hope the offense bails you out. If the Yanks could've gone into some of those postseason games with rotations that didn't include the likes of Kevin Brown, Jeff Weaver, Randall Johnson, Jaret Wright ( ), Shawn Chacon/Al Leiter, etc... if we didn't need those guys in key games, we probably wouldn't be talking about A-Rod's postseason failures. And thanks for the compliments. I like this place.
Well, I'm going to disclaim this before I say since you've never seen me rant about him, but I always disliked Bernie. His defense was average in his prime, and terrible when he wasn't "on." That said, I give him a pass in the postseason. I see your point with his numbers, however, he did have some big hits in October ball. Jeter gets a pass too, for the simple fact that he's got more hits in October than any other player in history. (Granted, it helps that there is the extra series, but still.) ----------------------- You're spot on about the pitching though. Of all the names you posted, the only guy I had any confidence at all in was Leiter, and that's pretty depressing. That's why I can't at all understand why Cashman would even CONSIDER trading Proctor for Wiggington. I realize Proctor is not all-star level talent, but he's fairly reliable, and he's been an absolute workhorse for us. Interestingly though, I think we currently have the best staff we've had in years right now, and one that can win in the postseason. However, the bats have to be patient, and get us out to early leads. Hughes (and hopefully Karstens,) will be immediate upgrades to the staff. Igawa looked okay out of the pen earlier this year, so maybe that will give us a quality 7th inning man, splitting time with Proctor, and allowing Vizcaino to become the setup man. Dump Myers, and allow Villone to be the supposed "lefty specialist." At least he can get outs once in a while. The odd man out would be Bruney, but he'd still have a place as the guy called on when the starter can't make it through 6. Farnsworth's time is done. I gave him a lot of rope, but he's hung himself. Big mouth and small heart do not a pitcher make. --------------------- As for the compliments, you deserve them. You're a good poster, and you write well developed arguments. I'm sure we'll butt heads but it's good to see you can actually have a legitimate debate. It's too bad 10Pennington10 isn't around these days. You two would have gotten along great.
I understand it, and like it, IF one of two things happen. Either: 1. Chris Britton replaces Proctor. 2. Joba Chamberlain replaces Proctor. Key word in your description of Proctor: fairly reliable. He's been off lately, and when he's wild, he's very, very easy to wait out and hit. If Britton or Chamberlain replace Proctor, I am fairly confident that the bullpen would be improved, not hurt. Secondly, Torre has worked the ever-lovin' shit out of Proctor's arm. I would almost guarantee that, if he keeps up the current workload, this will be Proctor's last effective season. Sell high while you can, I say. Next year, you wouldn't be able to get nearly as much for him. Granted, this is speculation, but it's grounded in fact. Look at the careers of Stanton and Quantrill after they became Torre's go-to guy. Lastly, I don't think people really understand just how bad Cairo is. It's deceptive, because he's usually not in the spotlight enough for it to become glaring, but the dude has a 73 OPS+ this year and a career OPS+ of 76. He's not a good enough hitter to be brought in to pinch hit, so you rarely get a chance to see him fail in that role. But that is NOT to say that the Yanks haven't had situations where they could use a right-handed bat with some pop. Wigginton has a career OPS+ of 100. That's the very definition of league average, and he has the ability to be as versatile as Cairo in the field (if not as slick with the glove). That's okay, though, because he'll bring a right-handed bat with some decent power to a team that is severely lacking with that option off of the bench, and Cairo can still be with the team for defensive purposes and flexibility.
It's still nothing in comparison to what he has done outside the playoffs qand even in other playoff series. I go back to what I said earlier this season. If he was in a slump then it was up to all those other 20 million dollar players to bail him out. They were ALL just as responsible for the loss as he was.
